November 18, 2008 9:53AM 

# A Tale of Two Auto Industry Business Plans 

By [Daniel J. Ikenson](https://www.cato.org/people/daniel-j-ikenson) 

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As Detroit’s lobbyists rack up the expenses trying to paint the Big Three and the UAW as innocent victims of the credit crunch, [American workers cheer the groundbreaking of an American automobile plant in the American heartland by Honda](http://www.reuters.com/article/americasDealsNews/idUSTRE4AG7DU20081117?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0), which has been producing vehicles in Marysville, Ohio for more than a quarter century now.

Let’s not forget that it’s these companies — the one’s capable of making the investments in manufacturing, the one’s who are leading the way in terms of producing fuel-efficient, comfortable, stylish vehicles that Americans have been inclined to purchase — that are implicitly taxed and burdened when their competition is subsidized.

A “bailout” costs taxpayers/​consumers in many more ways than one.

##### Related Tags 

[Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies) 

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